


In Just Seven Days

by GloriaMundi



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gender Issues, Possibly Unrequited Love, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-07 21:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 5,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1915053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaMundi/pseuds/GloriaMundi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“At last, in a world torn by the hatreds and wars of men, appears a woman to whom the problems and feats of men are mere child's play... “</p><p>There's a statuesque dame in red white and blue (she might as well be wearing the stars and stripes). She's got muscle where it matters, and curves too. She's determined as all get-out.</p><p>“Very funny,” says Steve tightly. “Wonder Woman, eh? You're a real joker, Buck."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Monday

# Monday

"Fairies!"

"C'mere and say that, you little --"

One of these days Bucky's gonna bite off more than he can chew. This ain't shaping to be that day, though. Mad Freddy's all mouth: sure, he's been waiting around for Steve (who heads home down Eighth Street every night, regular as clockwork), but soon as he sees Bucky squaring up he's away down the street like a bat out of hell.

"I swear one of these days I'll give that punk such a thrashing ..." Bucky's still breathing hard, his colour up, fists and jaws clenched. (Steve wants to draw him: but that's nothing new.) "Shouldn't go round mouthing off like that."

"Eh," says Steve. "He says that to any coupla guys who ain't got a girl with 'em. It's not like he meant it for us."

"Huh," says Bucky, punching Steve's shoulder hard enough that Steve misses a step. "Guess we better find a pair of dames to look out for us, then. Hey," he adds, and if Steve didn't know Bucky it might've sounded like a spur-of-the-moment thing, "Maria – you know, from the bakery? She's got this friend who's in town ..."

It's not that Steve much cares about being called a fairy. It's just another insult, to Freddy and his gang. They don't mean anything particular by it: tomorrow it'll be something else. But nobody gets to say Bucky's … like that. It's not right and it's not fair, and Steve won't stand for it.

"So, Thursday night? You, me an' the girls, seein' the Modern Marvels of Tomorrow?" says Bucky, and Steve says, "Yeah, sure."

'Cause Bucky ain't like that, and the more people who know it, the better.

* * *

Home. The apartment's tiny but it's theirs. Apartment? A cold, high-ceilinged room with a tatty curtain across the middle to split it into bedroom and sitting-room. No heater. A cold-water sink (the W.C.'s out on the landing, shared with old Mrs McGuire in room nine.) One big, sagging bed with rust on the frame and bloodstains on the mattress. Fifth floor, which means Steve gets to wheezing halfway up.

But it's theirs. Their own space. Doesn't mean Steve ever really relaxes, even here. 'C'mon," coaxes Bucky, every week or so. "It's just the two of us. You don't have to pretend, with me." But Steve _does_ , because the alternative is losing everything.

It's not like they've got much, not in practical terms. Bucky's permanently teetering on the hope of a good day's pay tomorrow, down at the docks (he's got more muscle on him than Steve, always has had) or a couple days' work at the Sugar Refinery. Steve's got a weekly pay packet from the Times-Union, which just about covers the rent. No way either of them could make ends meet alone, so it's just good sense to share digs.

Sometimes Bucky'll sit still long enough for Steve to sketch him, trying to get the lines smoother, 'cause doing line work for the funnies is all very well but some day there'll be a proper job in comics. Some nights they play poker for matchsticks: Saturdays they listen to the game on their battered old radio.

(Steve'd found that radio out back of Mr Benotti's shop, and fixed it up. "You're good at that, kid. No, you keep it. You wanna come work for me?" "No, Mr Benotti. Thanks, but I'm an – I work over at the newspaper. But thanks.")

Nothing to see here. Just two guys.


	2. Tuesday

# Tuesday

Steve's got the day off: was planning to head to the library but the asthma's playing up again. (Steve doesn't tell Bucky about the cramps : figures Bucky can't do anything about 'em, so there's no use in saying anything.) It's been damp and cold these last few days, and Bucky reckons Steve's lungs could do with a break. "Big date on Thursday," he teases. "You better not cough up a lung on Maria's cute friend."

"How d'you know she's cute?" Steve snaps -- or tries to snap, but ends up spluttering.

"Course she's cute," says Bucky cheerfully, shoving a pillow behind Steve's back and making sure there's water on the nightstand. "Would I lie to you?"

"Sure you would," says Steve. "Jerk."

It's strange, being in the apartment alone. Steve puts the radio on for a bit, but the endless discussion of the war in Europe is ... frustrating as hell. Steve wants to be there, fighting. Hitler might give himself all kinds of names, but he's a bully, no two ways about it. And he's evil. Every day there's some new horror. Jews rounded up and sent to camps. Cities bombed to smithereens. Armies on the march, trampling everything in their path. When Steve dozes off, it's to dreams of mud and blood, gunfire and darkness and explosions that look more blue than orange against the low cloud. Bucky's there, but he's just out of reach, and then -

Steve wakes up sweating just as Bucky gets home. It's dark outside, and the room is so cold that Steve's breath makes a cloud.

"Hey, champ. Not looking too good. Here, I got you this --" An orange, squashed but wonderful, lands on the blanket: Steve scoops it up, inhales the overripe citrus smell, imagines it healing lungs and heart and spirit. "And this." A rolled-up paper: no, it's a comic.

_All Star Comics_. It's number 8, and Steve hasn't seen an issue since the second one, but that doesn't matter. It's not like the stories are ever that different: hero meets villain, saves the day, gets the girl. "Gee, Bucky. Thanks!"

"Check out the new strip," says Bucky over his shoulder. He's filling the kettle, hooking down cups from above the sink, fiddling with the tea caddy. He's not looking at Steve.

Steve pages through the comic. It's not difficult to spot the strip Bucky means.

"At last, in a world torn by the hatreds and wars of men, appears a woman to whom the problems and feats of men are mere child's play... "

There's a statuesque dame in red white and blue (she might as well be wearing the stars and stripes). She's got muscle where it matters, and curves too. She's determined as all get-out.

"Very funny," says Steve tightly. "Wonder Woman, eh? You're a real joker, Buck."

"Hey, no, I didn't mean it like that," says Bucky, setting down a steaming cup next to Steve and stretching out on the bed. There are dark rings of sweat under his arms, and his stubble's coming through. Sometimes Steve kind of hates him. "Just thought you'd like it that there's a woman hero at last. A heroine? I dunno. But she's tough and brave and big-hearted. _Course_ I thought of you."

"Thanks," says Steve. "For the tea, I mean."

Bucky sighs. "What you bin doin'?"

"Listenin' to the radio," says Steve. "It's only a matter of time til America joins the war."

"Yeah," says Bucky. "Everyone's talking 'bout it. Sayin' the Japs'll hit a military base any day, and then we can't keep out of it no more. Steve, if they -- if we ..." Bucky stares down at the counterpane.

Steve kicks him. "Yeah, what?"

"I'm gonna enlist, Steve. If they want soldiers. I'll make sure you're --"

"What if _I_ want to enlist?" says Steve hotly. "Wh-what would you say to me, if I just, just came out and said I was headin' off to fight?"

"I'd say there's a load of good work you can do right here in Brooklyn," says Bucky. He's being unsettlingly gentle with Steve tonight. "It's not just about fighting on the front line. Someone has to keep the country going while --"

"While the _real men_ are risking their lives to save millions?"

"That's not what I meant and you know it, Steve!" Bucky's temper's like a match: quick to flare and as quick to die down. Steve's is a slow burn, and it feels like it's been burning for years. "Look," Bucky goes on, "if it was just hearts and guts that mattered, you'd be a General by Christmas. But --"

"So what _is_ it that matters, Buck? What does it take that I don't have, to be a soldier?"

It's a challenge, a dare. Bucky never used to back down from dares, not ... before. But he backs down now.

"If anything happened to you over there ..."

"Well," says Steve bitterly. "It ain't gonna happen to me, is it? It's gonna happen to you, and to Teddy, and to Mike. Not to poor frail little Stevie."

"Can the self-pity, buddy: it ain't a good look on you. What I'm sayin' is, there are other ways to win a war. You just need to find the right one for you."

"Right," says Steve, and for the first time in a long while feels the prickle of imminent tears. "All I got to do is get the glad rags together, and I can be Wonder Woman."


	3. Wednesday

# Wednesday

Puberty sucked. Getting used to a whole new body, it felt like: finding its balances and its strengths, learning each new weakness and how to hide it. Didn't help that Steve was sick so often. "It'll pass as you get older," Doctor Cohen had said: but after that, Steve's mom got sicker and they couldn't afford two sets of doctor's bills. So Steve never got to ask if the way she was feeling was the way all the girls felt.

This is not my body. This is not who I'm supposed to be. This is _wrong_.

Steve can't remember ever feeling that she was a _real_ girl, not on the inside, not even when her mother was alive and telling her how pretty she'd be when she grew up and got her period and became a woman. "You'll meet a nice man, honey," she'd say. "You got to learn to treat him like he's the centre of your world. Now, come here and let me brush your hair."

Bucky never treated Steve any different, even after she started to fill out (not much, but enough to show) in the chest. He'd still spar with her in the vacant lot -- even vouched for her at the gym, where Jack O'Malley would let them go a few rounds after hours if they helped out with the chores.

"Steve's my pal," Bucky'd told O'Malley earnestly. "I know he looks like a stiff breeze'd knock him down, but he's tougher than he looks." And then when O'Malley didn't stop scowling at the pair of them (Steve with her hair hacked short like Bucky's, her mouth bruised from where Mad Freddy had caught up with her on the way home the other night, everything squashed flat under her old, tight vest: Bucky a head taller, his arm round her shoulders, grinning that grin that charmed _everyone_ ), Bucky'd said, "Look at the kid's face, sir. I need to teach him to give as good as he gets."

"Hey, I fight back plenty!" Steve'd protested.

"Don't count if you don't hit 'em as hard as they hit you."

"Off you go, then, lads," O'Malley'd said. "But mind, I want this floor clean enough to see my face in when I get back."

* * *

"Sorry, miss," says the recruiting officer. "You can't volunteer for war work here. You need to get down to the Civilian Volunteer Office. They'll find you something."

"I don't want war work," says Steve. "I don't want to collect scrap, or work in a factory, or be a nurse. I want to be a soldier."

After Bucky told her about the medical exams ("buck naked, all of 'em: no way they wouldn't notice you're missing something") Steve'd realised she'd have to be ... herself. Didn't mean she'd turn up in a pretty frock and lipstick. She was in the clothes she wore to work: smart slacks, white shirt, nice jacket. And the recruitment officer -- Sergeant Coogan -- had pegged her as a girl without a second glance.

"Well, little lady," says the Sergeant now, looking her up and down, "the United States Army trains up _men_ , and you ain't a man. What'd your boyfriend say, if he knew you were down here looking to enlist?"

"I don't have a boyfriend," says Steve sullenly, thinking of Bucky in his flash new uniform.

"Well, I'm sure there's some fine young men out there who'd be happy to step out with you," says Coogan, with false heartiness.

You're sending them all off to war, Steve doesn't say. There won't be any fine young men left in the whole of New York City. "I don't want a boyfriend. I want to be a soldier."

"Come along, miss," says Coogan. He's not smiling now. "The army's no place for a woman. You might think it's all very exciting, like in the movies, but it's mud and blood and boredom. And how would you feel, miss, if the brave boys in your platoon all decided they needed to look out for you instead of for themselves, eh?"

"I just want to be a soldier. I don't want any special treatment."

"Want it or not, you'd get it. Even a plain Jane like -- no offence, miss."

"None taken," says Steve, because it's actually kind of a compliment.

"Next!" calls Coogan, and Steve bites back another protest, because this battle's lost but there'll be another battle, another day.

Feels like she'll never stop fighting.


	4. Thursday

# Thursday

Steve's been busy laying out pages all day: there's ink on her fingers, and she's wheezing from all the glue she's inhaled. Doesn't matter. She has a mission: she and Bucky are off to the future.

Of course Bucky's charmed a couple of dames into keeping the two of them company. Maria is as sharp and witty as Bucky himself, so that leaves the country cousin, Linda. Steve wonders if Linda can tell that her date's a woman. (Some of the girls Bucky finds for Steve have made pointed comments: but nobody's ever called her a girl to her face, because ... because. Steve doesn't know why. She likes to think she'd be as kind.)

Today's layout was mostly advertising. Steve doesn't much care for the unsubtle artwork, the exaggerated physiques and monstrous claims, but she has to admit that advertising has kept the paper afloat. Doesn't mean she wasn't tempted to juxtapose Vitalis Hair Tonic for Men with the new Charles Atlas . 'In just seven days,' claims Mr Atlas, 'I can make you a man.'

If only, thinks Steve, casting a wistful eye at the Army Recruiting Office. Bucky -- in his starchy new uniform, buttons glinting -- sees her looking, catches her shoulder, turns her firmly towards the main stage. "Quit worrying, punk," he murmurs against her ear: and Steve pretends to herself for a moment that it's just the two of them, that this is a real date. That Bucky's arm is going to stay right there on her shoulder, that he's going to pull her close.

Bucky never talks to Steve about his girls, or what he does with them. Steve imagines it anyway. Imagines getting dolled up (she's still got a couple of her mother's dresses, though they hang off Steve and make her feel undressed). Imagines that they'll kiss, the way Bucky kisses all his girls, passionate and showy and possessive: that they'll kiss, in front of all these people -- some of them nodding and smiling at Bucky in his fine new uniform, some of them simply set on getting to see as much of the future as they can, and forget about the present for a few hours -- and nobody will bat an eyelid.

But if Bucky did kiss Steve right now, the consequences ... two guys kissing in public? Not here, right in the middle of Modern Marvels of Tomorrow. Maybe in a back room of some dive bar in Brooklyn. Maybe in their apartment (though they've never, because Steve can only do this if Bucky plays along). Maybe ... maybe in Europe. Steve's read that things are different there.

Or were, before the Nazis came along.

Steve turns to Linda, who's looking askance at her. Linda's pretty enough. Her lipstick isn't too bright, and it's more neatly applied than Steve's ever managed in the privacy of the bathroom. Her hair is neatly curled: the sleeve of her jacket has been torn, and carefully mended. There's a mole the size of a dime on the curve of her chin.

"Pretty swell, huh?" Steve offers lamely, waving an arm at the lights, the noise, the whoosh of the skyrail above their heads.

"I guess," says Linda, shrugging. They pass a knot of soldiers, new uniforms and shiny brass. A couple of them salute Bucky, who returns the favour rather more sloppily.

"You not joining up, then?" Linda asks Steve.

"4F," lies Steve. "Asthma, flat feet: you name it, I got it." It's not that big a lie. Steve's never been as healthy as Bucky. "Gonna volunteer at the War Office," she says. "Gotta be something I can do."

"That's a shame," says Linda distantly. "Hey, Barnes!"

It takes Steve a moment to realise that she means Bucky.

"Can't you take your friend along with you?" says Linda, laughing, her hand on Bucky's arm. (Steve is possessed of a sudden violent rage, which turns into a cough.) "He's small enough to fit in your kitbag, I'll bet!"

Bucky shrugs away from her, hugging Maria closer. "I want Steve safe," he says, suddenly solemn. "I want to know I've got a friend to come home to."

Steve wants to scream. She can't ... she can't listen to this, listen to Bucky lying with the truth, for one more minute. 

The speakers crackle and hiss, and there's an announcement. "Welcome to the Modern Marvels Pavilion and the world of tomorrow! A greater world. A better world"

"Oh my god," says Linda. "It's starting!"

"Ladies and gentlemen," booms the announcer, "Mr Howard Stark!"

Up on the podium there's a sharp-looking man in a flash suit. He looks more like a circus ringmaster than an inventor. He kisses the showgirl in a move so suave, so smooth, that it has to be rehearsed. "Ladies and gentlemen," he says, with a flashing smile, "what if I told you that in just a few short years, your automobile won't even have to touch the ground?"

It's easy enough to slip away while Bucky and the girls are jostling for space. Steve couldn't give a good goddamn about Howard Stark and his amazing flying car. That's not a future Steve's interested in. The only future she cares about is the one where Bucky comes home to her. And maybe, some day ...

There's another poster outside the Recruiting Office: a glossy-haired dame with a dreamy look. "I wish I was a man," runs the tagline. "I'd join the Navy."

"Huh," says Steve, simultaneously amused and enraged. She kind of wants to tear it down. On the other hand, it's a good picture: something about the dreamy look in the girl's eyes, and the shadowy figures of men in uniform, a battleship ... 

"Can I help you, miss?"

Steve freezes for a moment: but that's not the right thing to do, and it's not like anyone can tell she's dressed up as something she's not. No, it's just some old guy at the entrance to the Army Recruitment pavilion. He's got a foreign accent that she thinks might be German, and he's squinting at her through thick lenses.

Steve makes a show of looking over her shoulder, searching out this elusive 'miss'. "Sorry?" she says in her deepest voice.

"You do very well," says the man. "Very well. But I am a doctor -- I do beg your pardon. Doctor Abraham Erskine, at your service, miss."

"What gave me away?" says Steve, as though it doesn't matter. There's nobody near them, nobody close enough to overhear. But it's the very first time that anyone has wised up to her disguise when she's been trying so hard.

"A number of things," says Dr Erskine. "I watched you earlier, when you came here. You were so desperate to enlist, but so sure that you would be refused. Any man born, no matter how weak or sickly he was, would try anyway. But you know, do you not, that you would be refused as soon as they discovered your sex -- which would happen very swiftly, in the medical examination."

"Right," says Steve. There's a lump in her throat that she hopes is just tears: she's used to fighting back tears. "Okay, you made me. I'd appreciate it if you didn't noise it around."

"Miss ...?"

"Rogers," says Steve. "Steve -- Stephanie -- Rogers. I was named for my father. He died in the Great War. Mustard gas."

"Miss Rogers," says Doctor Erskine, "I would like to talk to you about an experiment I wish to conduct."


	5. Friday

# Friday

Steve's been sitting on the sidelines for the last hour, watching a squad of recruits being put through their paces. She's not exactly envious of them -- the persistent drizzle is bone-chilling enough from the shelter of the bleachers -- but she does think wistfully of what it might be like to have that kind of strength, to be able to run for miles and then do fifty press-ups. Maybe Dr Erskine's mysterious formula is going to make her as strong as a man. She's still not clear on what it's supposed to do.

"Private Rogers?" calls Agent Carter. She's British, cut-glass accent, classy as all get-out and tough as nails. Earlier, Steve saw her knock down a private who'd gotten a little fresh. "Your turn. Training kit, please, and meet me in the gym in ten minutes."

"Yes, ma'am," says Steve. The other recruits are heading to the mess hall, and she hangs back a little to let them pass. She's not really one of them, for all they call her 'Private' and keep their language clean when they think she's listening.

Here at boot camp, she's been ordered to be a woman.

When she first arrived at the camp, there was a pile of neatly-folded clothes on her bed: skirts and blouses. _Underthings_. Every morning feels like an elaborate game of dress-up.

Back in the four-bed dormitory (she's the sole occupant) she scrambles into gym shorts and a t-shirt, and it's the first time she's felt like herself since she got here.

Agent Carter's waiting outside the gym, smoking a cigarette. She manages to look elegant even in uniform. For a moment Steve entertains the traitorous fantasy of having been born British, instead of American. Clearly nobody ever told Agent Carter she couldn't enlist. To top it all, she's got natural advantages Steve's somehow missed out on: curves like one of Bucky's dames, legs like a showgirl, the ability to wear lipstick without it smudging everywhere. She's better than Wonder Woman. She's _real_.

"I'm told you know how to use your fists, Rogers," she says without preamble. "Show me what you've got."

She fights in a style that Steve's never seen, and it's darned effective: Steve's gasping for breath before they've gone two rounds, and down on the mats after the third.

"Who taught you to fight? Your brother?" asks Agent Carter, not offering Steve a hand.

Steve wheezes a bit, and decides it's not worth the extra breath to explain that she's an only child. "O'Malley, down at the local gym, ma'am," she says.

"Did you tell him you were a girl?"

That sets Steve coughing again. "No, ma'am," she says when she can speak. "He wouldn't have taught me if he'd known."

"You need to learn to fight with your body," says Agent Carter crisply.

Steve looks at her, puzzled. What else would she be fighting with?

"You're handicapping yourself, soldier. Your body isn't like a man's. Your centre of gravity's here," she touches her own flat waist, "not in the chest. Your legs are proportionately longer: you can kick better, and keep your balance while you're doing it. We ladies have more stamina; we react more quickly; we have more flexibility in our hips than a man does."

"Okay," says Steve slowly. "So I'm trying to fight like a man, but I've got the wrong ammunition."

Agent Carter smiles like a movie star. "That's right. Let's see if we can teach you to use what nature gave you."

*

"They have told you," says Dr Erskine, "that women cannot enlist: women cannot be fighters."

"Yes, sir," says Steve.

"What if I told you that there is a way you can join the army? That I can make you into the perfect soldier?"

"I'd ask what you'd been drinking," says Steve frankly. "And maybe if you'd care to pour me a shot of it, too."

Dr Erskine laughs. "I have -- here in my head where it cannot be stolen, not on paper -- the formula for a serum that will transform you into a true soldier."

"They still won't take me," says Steve. "I'm a girl."

"This is true," says Dr Erskine. "But in your heart -- what are you in your heart? Is it a woman's heart, or a man's?"

"I ... I don't know," says Steve. "It's just mine."

"That is good," says Erskine, his accent more strongly pronounced: _dat is gut_. "I would be concerned, if you told me you had a man's heart. It is better to be neither one nor the other, for this serum of mine. Too much of the masculine, too much of the feminine: either way it brings out the worst."

"You've tested it?"

"It has been tested," says Erskine, staring down at the blotter in front of him as though the blank expanse is hiding secrets. "The man who stole a vial of it ..." He sighs. "Well. He is a monster now, not a man."

"That's ... not really encouraging," says Steve.

"This will not happen to you," says Erskine. "You have a good heart. The serum can only magnify what is there. Now, you are a ..." He pauses, searching for a word: he wiggles his fingers. "A caterpillar, yes?"

"I am?" 

"And you will go into your chrysalis, and when you emerge -- boof! You will be a good ma-- I beg your pardon. A good soldier."

"I'll do my best, sir," says Steve.


	6. Saturday

# Saturday

Howard Stark turns out to be less of a showman in person than he'd been at the Modern Marvels Pavilion. Instead of that ringmaster outfit, he's in filthy overalls, with grease on his face where he's rubbed his eyes. He frowns at Steve. " _You're_ Dr Erskine's latest ... volunteer?"

"Yes, sir," says Steve. She still feels peculiar in women's clothing, still expects somebody to make a joke or call her a nancy. Stark doesn't flirt with her the way he flirts with Agent Carter or Private Lorraine, but he's eyeing her in a way that would've gotten him punched if Steve'd been the guy he's always passed as.

"Well," says Stark, "I guess he knows what he's doing. What's he told you, sweetheart?"

Steve bristles at the endearment. "That the machine, and the Vita-Rays, will bring out the best in me, make me the best soldier I can be." There's no way she's going to mention butterflies. Stark looks like the kind of guy who'd find that hilarious.

"Hmm," says Stark. "Well, that's as good a description as any, unless you want a crash course in orgone therapy and dynamic tension." Steve starts to say that yes, that'd be great: but Stark barrels on, "Hope it puts some meat on your bones. You'd be --"

He breaks off abruptly, clearing his throat.

"Mr Stark," says Agent Carter from behind Steve. "How's the device coming along?"

"We're going to black out the whole of Brooklyn," says Stark, with something approaching glee.

"What?" says Steve. "No, wait --"

"Only for a few minutes," says Stark.

*

They let Steve wear her vest, and a pair of loose trousers, for the procedure. It's not like she's ever had more than beestings for boobs -- Wonder Woman's fancy corset would fall straight down to Steve's ankles -- but that doesn't mean she wants everyone staring at her chest. None of the politicians and reporters gathered in the lab are going to see anything they don't expect. Private Steve Rogers, scrawny little guy from Brooklyn, stepping up to play lab rat for an untested procedure. "Someone give that kid a sandwich!" says some wise guy as Dr Erskine helps her into the ... the machine.

"Kind of big," says Steve. "Plenty of room."

Erskine just chuckles. "Mr Stark," he says, "how are your levels?"

"Levels at 100%," says Stark.

"Agent Carter," says Erskine, "don't you think you would be more comfortable in the booth?"

Steve stares after Agent Carter as she climbs the metal staircase to where the reporters are waiting. Maybe, she thinks, maybe the serum will turn me into somebody like her. Or maybe it'll turn me into Wonder Woman.

She giggles, and Erskine's suddenly right there next to the machine, the chrysalis. "Steve," he says. "Are you ... are you ready?"

"I guess it's too late to go to the bathroom," says Steve.

She won't let herself scream. She's never liked needles and the feel of the serum burning through her veins is agony: but she tells herself it's no worse than scarlet fever which left her aching in every joint. She won't scream. She won't.

She screams, can't help herself, when the VitaRays hit her. It's as though her bones are cracking open, stretching, twisting. It's worse than the worst Indian burn the 8th Street gang have ever inflicted. Worse than the time Bucky was teaching her how to punch and she feinted the wrong way. He'd been real shook up, kept apologising.

Outside the lights are flickering, the pain is getting worse, she can't bite back the screams any more. When she's gasping for air she hears Erskine trying to shut down the machine.

"No! Dont! I can take it!"

Because if she can't, nobody in this room will ever look at a woman and see a strong person again.

And then ...

She's never appreciated the absence of pain so acutely. She feels like she's been lying in the sun for hours, like she's soaked up light and warmth and heat until it's bursting out of every cell. Shes sweating. She feels ... good. Better than good. Like she can breathe for the first time in her life. Like she --

She can hear Erskine and Stark pulling levers, throwing switches. She's not ready for the chrysalis to open. She doesn't feel like any kind of butterfly. She's something much more solid now.

Her vest is stretched, ripped. How the hell --

She risks a glance downwards, but nah, she hasn't just acquired a cleavage. It's --

"Oh my god," says Erskine, taking her hand -- his own hand is cool and dry and much smaller than her own -- and helping her out of the machine. "Oh my god. This is --"

"Did it work? Hey, it worked!"

That's Stark, his usual insouciance tempered by something like awe. "Wow."

He's not looking at Steve like he did before. He's looking at her as if ...

Steve stumbles slightly -- her whole body's off-kilter, unbalanced, and her hips --

A shot rings out -- there's screaming -- Erskine's on the floor and there's blood on his white coat -- the guy with the gun has grabbed the remaining --

Steve, barefoot and _different_ , doesn't hesitate, doesn't think. Runs after him.

* 

Everything is so vivid.

She's standing, panting, the smell of bitter almonds and the smell of dirty seawater and the myriad smells of the port and the smell of her own sweat which is different to what it used to be. There's a dead man at her feet. She chased him for _miles_. She leapt, ran, dove. She barely even thought about what she was doing. And now she can think of nothing but the sheer potential for destruction, for _action_ , that's been unleashed.

Her trousers don't fit right. They're hitching on --

Oh. 

That's new. 

She's --

\-- _he's_ \--


	7. Sunday

# Sunday

Now Steve gets what Agent Carter meant about the _real_ differences between a man's body and a woman's. (Not that he wants to think about Agent Carter right now. "Call me Peggy," she'd said, looking at him the way dames always looked at Bucky. Steve has no idea how to handle that.) The real differences are nothing to do with what's between her -- his -- legs, though that's weird enough. Steve's torn between not wanting to look and ... wanting to explore. To touch this thing, these things, that by society's standards make him, now, a man.

He's the same person he always was. How come nobody sees that? Because they only see the outside, he supposes, and _that_ has definitely changed a heck of a lot. So different, he can't believe nobody ever noticed the lie. But this body feels like his in a way that the old one never did.

He feels the changes every moment of the day. His hands are bigger and stronger. He can _breathe_. (That alone would be enough.) He can run for hours and barely get out of breath. By five o'clock, his chin itches with stubble -- and hey, shaving is kind of a bore when you have to do it every day or look like a tramp. His skin smells different. He can see for miles, hear a whisper in the next room, smell tears on Agent Carter's breath when she tells him that Doctor Erskine would be proud. He sleeps better. When he's angry, he doesn't have to fight back furious tears.

He (she) used to tell Bucky, "I can fight all day". Now it's for real.

"I can fight," he insists to Colonel Phillips. "Send me to the front line. It's the least we can do for Doctor Erskine's memory."

"You're an experiment, Rogers," says Phillips flatly. "The only place you're going is a lab."

*

The thing is ... the thing is, he's got to give up on any dream he ever had of being with Bucky. If -- _when_ \-- they both come home from the war, they'll be no more in truth than they've pretended to be for years: best buddies, two guys. Bucky'll fix Steve up with his dates' sisters, roommates, friends. Steve'll tag along -- no, scratch that, he's a man now, and he's not blind to the admiring looks directed at him by some of the dames at the SSR. He doesn't know what to do with that admiration yet, but he'll figure it out. After the war.

But him and Bucky -- well, Bucky's gonna get the shock of his life. And maybe he won't care for Steve's company any more, but ... hell, Steve's the same person underneath all this muscle and skin and strength. Sure they can be pals, just like they've always been.

And Bucky'll marry some girl, some day. And Steve'll be his best man. And if he looks at the groom like a starving man looking at a feast ...

It won't be the first time he's wanted something impossible.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to K for beta. and for loan of laptop in pub to post last chapter :)


End file.
